


Bad for you/Good for you

by plantboycharms



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Cuddling & Snuggling, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Oh boy do they mention that one scene from the memory from the library, Second Chances, So like lil bitty warning for that, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:47:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21627838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plantboycharms/pseuds/plantboycharms
Summary: Asra and Julian weren't good for each other then. But time makes you bolder.
Relationships: Asra/Julian Devorak
Comments: 4
Kudos: 66





	Bad for you/Good for you

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in muriels route, my Apprentice is named Cadence, they're not really important but are mentioned. Dancing around the name is Awkward but feel free to just insert your own in there lol

It was lonely, being on the run. Julian knew everyone, it was true, had acquaintances everywhere to help out, to offer food and a floor to sleep on, but being… by himself, for so long… it had been hard.   
Coming back to Vesuvia had been terrifying, but also one of the easiest decisions he'd made. He couldn't stay out any more. He needed to come back, to see what had happened. What he'd done. 

Everyone knew he'd been a little in love with the Apprentice from Asra's shop. He'd also been a little in love with Asra, if he was honest with himself. And Asra, too, had been perhaps more than a little in love with his Apprentice. Julian heard stories from down the grapevine, Cadence was back but somehow not back at all, Asra was nursing them back to health, and of course, how they had been contacted by the countess to find him and have him hanged. 

They'd tossed that out the window pretty quickly. Apparently, all it took was Cadence and Asra's friend Muriel being swept off by some strange woman claiming to be Lucio's mother to prove his innocence, and he wasn't that mad about it. 

And now it was just… like old times. But not at all like old times, but somehow just like old times. He and Asra in the library, moving around each other like magnets, but this time, facing the wrong way. He could remember what it had been like, drawn together, like some kind of power was pulling them closer. Now it seemed the opposite, like they couldn't break the threshold of 2 feet of distance without it becoming dangerous. Julian was used to being alone, but it was lonelier somehow. 

"So… Cadence, huh?" Julian finally said, breaking the silence. He'd never been good at staying quiet.   
Asra started and looked up from the pile of books he'd been staring blankly at.   
"What?"   
"Well, you know. They're… back, and all that, right? Do they know? What you did?" Julian suddenly realized it wasn't his business at all, but he wasn't one to backtrack.   
"I mean, you don't have to tell me. If you're not… If you don't want, you know, to…" just kidding. He backpedaled as fast as he could tripping over his own words.   
Asra just heaved a sigh and turned back to the books, one hand idly rubbing the spot over his heart. 

"They don't really know, not yet. They'll likely find out eventually, but every time I tried to tell them, they got these horrible migraines, like, crying on the floor holding their head and asking me to kill them migraines. So we stopped doing that. I imagine it'll come out eventually, Muriel… knows." Asra's eyes darted over to Julian, full of sadness. "Don't look at me like that." 

"Like what!" Julian said, indignant. 

"With those sad eyes, like you know what I've been through. You don't, and I don't know what you've been through, and that's just that. It's okay, we don't always have to understand." Asra's small smile crept back onto his face. "I know you loved them too. It was hard not to, huh?" 

Julian resisted the urge to splutter, but heat crawled up his face regardless.   
"Well I…. Supposing I did, it would have been… inappropriate for us to engage, that is to say, if we had done, well, and you know, if I was or if, well, if you were, then…" Julian trailed off. Years of acting school for this. 

"It's really okay. I know I was… perhaps a little more than obvious, so I really couldn't fault you for it. Not that I would. We were… We were messes, Ilya." Asra laughed softly at that, shaking his head ruefully. Julian's heart skipped a beat at the nickname. It wasn't like nobody called him that, it just… Felt different. More tender. Asra had always been softer, gentler, kinder than Julian's past lovers.   
Not that Asra was just a Past Lover, he was so much more than that, a friend, a coworker, a confident. He'd been those things before he'd been a lover, and Julian found himself hoping he could be those things again. Asra hadn't treated him like a cheap fuck, no matter how much he had acted like one. No matter how much he had been one. 

And now Asra was there just looking at him, waiting. Patient as always.

"Oh, you're back." Asra smiled. "I lost you for a second there."   
"I… yeah, sorry." Julian forced a little laugh, convincing his usual smile to stretch across his face. "I was reminiscing." 

"What, to the good old days when we used to fuck because we were both in love with my dead Apprentice?" Asra laughed bitterly. "It's okay, I'm… I'm as over it as I can be. Are…. Are you?" He asked, face dropping a little. 

"I'm not sure." Julian replied, trying and failing to draw his eyes away from Asra's purple ones. "It's been years and I regret… I regret something, some things, I guess, but I have...a really hard time pinpointing what. Maybe all of it. Maybe none of it. I don't know."   
Asra smiled and this time it was softer, more indulgent. Maybe flirty?   
"Do you regret what we did?" 

He turned bright red just thinking about it. Bruised knees, scratches down his chest, panting on the floor… there was something he regretted about that whole situation, and it wasn't having done it. 

"Hmm, I'll let you think on how you want to answer that." Asra laughed, eyes squinting like they always did when he was genuinely entertained. "Your reactions are still as cute as they were, Ilya. I'm… I'm glad you're back. I missed you." He turned away at that, back to the books that he really wasn't doing anything with. He fussed with the top few, aimlessly. Julian gaped at him. 

"I missed you too, Asra," he choked out, turning back to the desk and doing the same. 

Silence stretched on, only broken by the rustling of papers and footsteps muffled on carpet as they organized the books and papers and just generally tried to get the chaos they'd left the library in a little less… Chaotic. 

It was only as he caught himself staring blankly at a drawing that made absolutely no sense to him anymore that he realized he might be tired. But Asra was still floating around behind him on almost silent feet, so he kept it up, grabbing more things and trying to make sense of them. He couldn't very well organize the notes he didn't understand. Which, at this rate, were all of them. 

When Asra's arm wrapped around his back, one hand on each of his arms, his knees buckled a little. He'd have loved to pretend that Asra didn't notice, but of course he did. Asra always noticed.   
"Ilya! Er, Julian, are you alright? I just saw you staring at that paper and I thought, well, it's late, are you so exhausted? Come, I know where you'll be staying, Nadi will understand."   
Asra's hands were suddenly everywhere, fluttering over Julian's arms and up to lift his chin and look into his eyes and then down again, to pull the papers away and grab his hand, clasped gently in Asra's tiny ones. Julian flushed, trying to turn his head away, to pull his hands back. 

"No, I'm fine, I just. You startled me, is all." Julian resisted the hands on his own. It had been so long, so so long since someone had touched him like that. Like they cared. Or, really, at all. 

"Nonsense. It's late anyway. And you look dead on your feet. We're going." Asra was pulling him now, in earnest. A wave of his hand and the lanterns farthest from them went out, leaving only a few to illuminate the way out. One hand stayed on Julian's hand, the other snaked around his waist, gently holding him up. Julian shivered at the touch.   
"Asra-"   
But he didn't make a move to stop him. He couldn't. He just… moved, walked where he was led, feet stumbling to wherever Asra took him. 

Which turned out to be a guest room. Of course it would be. Asra stayed long enough to sit Julian on the bed, overcoat discarded on the floor carelessly, then stepped back and away.   
"Well, I'm… just down the hall, the next door over, past the… the bath is right there, you probably didn't know, it's behind me here, and then I'm on the other side… over… there, if you need me." Asra seemed flustered now, carefully looking away as Julian stared at him, arms loose at his sides from where he'd dropped them after reaching pathetically after Asra for a ment before realizing what he was doing.   
"Could…. Would you… would you stay?" Julian whispered, cracking his mouth open with difficulty and licking his lips. 

"What, Ilya?" Asra said, now looking to him. 

"Would you stay. Please. Just… I know you and… you were with them, I know you're probably… you don't want… but I'm… it's…. I'm sorry." Julian trailed off. He wasn't sure what he was trying to say either. He wasn't Cadence, he was broader and taller and more, well, broken, he couldn't replace them. But he didn't want to be alone. He could handle being the replacement again, if it meant not being alone tonight. 

"Ilya, what do you want?" Asra's voice was gentle like his hands, raising Julian's chin to look up at him, and he felt a spike of longing, of regret, of whatever it was that kept bringing him back to those purple eyes and fluffy hair. 

"Stay."   
He tried very hard not to beg. How successful he was, he couldn't say. 

Asra froze. 

"Julian, I was… I used you…. You know I was bad for you…." He whispered, hands withdrawing just slightly before Julian caught them with his own. 

"I know. I know. I just don't want to… be alone tonight. And I don't think you should either. You can go back to being bad for me tomorrow. But…" Julian let go of Asra, who looked like his resolve was weakening. 

Asra dropped his gaze, but toed off his shoes and shrugged the sash off from his shoulder.   
"Take your shoes off, then, and your jacket. It can't be comfortable."   
Julian rushed to comply.

When Asra finally settled into bed, head on Julian's shoulder, arm across his chest, he let out a breath he didn't know he'd been keeping in. 

"I don't… want to." Asra whispered into Julian's skin, and he almost didn't catch it.   
"Don't want to… What? You don't have to stay, I'm sorry if I pressured you, I-"   
"No, that's not what I meant. I don't want to…. Go back to being bad for you." He'd lifted his head just slightly, enough that they could lock eyes.   
Julian had never felt more trapped in Asra's gaze. 

"Wh-what?" 

"I've made a lot of mistakes. Some big ones, some small ones. Oopsies, if you will. How I treated you….. was one of my worst." Asra sounded so pained, so small.   
"And so I understand that you… you regret what we did. It's okay. I think I would too, if I didn't …" he flushed, enough that Julian could see it in the dim light coming in from the window. 

"Asra, I've… I never regretted. I was… I was fond of Cadence, everyone was. It was hard not to be. I… I knew you were, I knew, you don't have to be good for me to… I don't know what I'm trying to say. I'm sorry." He looked away, trying to hold back the emotion that was trying to choke him in his own (guest) bed.   
"I think the only thing I regret is how much I loved you, and how much you didn't love me. Or, dont. I guess." 

There was silence, for too long, too too long, until Asra whispered "Julian?" and he was forced to turn away, still choked up.   
"I'm sorry…. I'm so sorry I made you think I didn't love you." 

His heart stuttered. 

"I can't take back the way you feel. Or the way I… made you feel. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. Well, like that." Julian felt his smile against his chest, tried very hard not to let hope bloom in his heart.   
"I wanted to be good for you. I'm so sorry I couldn't be. I… If you gave me another try, I'd… things could be… I'd hope, at least… I could be better." 

The hope that had tried so hard to bloom was choking him now.

"You want to… try…..again?" He whispered with difficulty, he was not entirely sure he was breathing. 

"If….. if you…. I mean…"   
Julian had never seen Asra at such a loss for words. He swallowed, trying to regulate his heart, which was fluttering under Asra's hand, and nodded.   
He wasn't sure if Asra had seen, but then he felt him stretch up and press a soft kiss to the bottom of his cheek, them snuggle back down to his chest with a sigh. 

And so they fell asleep, Julian dreamed of trying again, and he woke with Asra still warmly wrapped in his arms. Right where he should be.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr for screech?? Fragile-euphoria I pinky swear I'm nice


End file.
